and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter.  Woodcocks begin to arrive, and keep dropping in from the Baltic singly or in pairs till December.  The snipe also comes now;” and with the month, by a kind of savage charter, commences the destruction of the pheasant, to swell the catalogue of the created wants and luxuries of the table.  “One of the most curious natural appearances,” says Mr. L. Hunt, “is the gossamer, which is an infinite multitude of little threads shot out by minute spiders, who are thus wafted by the wind from place to place.”  In this manner spiders are known to cross extents of many miles.

The weather becomes misty, though the middle of the day is often very fine.  Hence it is the proper season for the enjoyment of forest scenery.  The leaves, which, towards the close of September, began to assume their golden tints and gorgeous hues, now lecture us with their scenes of falling grandeur; and nothing is more delightful than in an autumnal walk to emerge from the pensive gloom of a thick forest, and just catch the last glimpse of an October sun, shedding his broad glare over the varied tints of its leaves and branches, for the sombre and silvery barks of the latter add not a little to the picture.  “The hedges,” says the author already quoted, “are now sparkling with their abundant berries,—­the wild rose with the hip, the hawthorn with the haw, the blackthorn with the sloe, the bramble with the blackberry; and the briony, privet, honey-suckle, elder, holly, and woody nightshade, with their other winter feasts for the birds.”

October is the great month for brewing—­that luxurious and substantial branch of rural economy; and many and merry are the songs and stories of nut-brown October to “gladden the heart of man,” with the soul-stirring influence of its regalings.  Hops, too, are generally picked this month.

October in Italy is thus vividly described:  “It was now the beginning of the month of October; already the gales which attend upon the equinox swept through the woods and trees; the delicate chestnut woods, which last dare encounter the blasts of spring, and whose tender leaves do not expand until they may become a shelter to the swallow, had already changed their hues, and shone yellow and red, amidst the sea-green foliage of the olives, the darker but light boughs of the cork-trees, and the deep and heavy masses of ilexes and pines.”

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Astronomical Occurences

FOR OCTOBER, 1827.

(For the Mirror.)

Mercury is in conjunction with Jupiter on the 7th at noon:  he is too near the sun to be observed this month.

Venus passes her superior conjunction on the 7th, at 10 h. morning, thenceforward she sets after the sun, and becomes an evening star.  This interesting planet makes a very near appulse to Jupiter on the 16th at 1 h. morning.